Porchetta, polpette and pizza – discover authentic Italian delights at Corbetta’s Kitchen
When it comes to dining, we’re always hesitant to throw around the word ‘authentic’. We embrace it, however, when describing Corbetta’s Kitchen. Helmed by Milanese export Jacopo Corbetta, there’s no denying that the Italian food here is the real deal. The Morningside dispensary opened quietly at the end of last year, serving up an array of Italian delights to enjoy on site or take home to create a feast.
When asked about Corbetta’s Kitchen’s origin story, chef and owner Jacopo Corbetta gives me a cheeky grin. “How far do you want to start?,” he laughs. We decide to start at the very beginning – in Milan, where Jacopo was born and studied to become a chef. After stints in kitchens across his home city, Jacopo headed to Bellagio where he worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant on Lake Como at the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, before moving on to London. “I went around,” he recalls, “being a chef has always been good because I could travel – I never had a problem finding a job as a chef”.
Almost 15 years ago, Jacopo’s thirst for travel propelled him across the world to Sydney – and he loved it so much, he decided to stay. “My working holiday turned into staying. It was fun, I was living in Bondi,” Jacopo reflects. “I ended up working for Icebergs and I became the head chef for five years”.
While working in Italian restaurants for his entire adult life has definitely fed into the Corbetta’s Kitchen concept, it wasn’t until Jacopo (with a young family in tow) moved to Brisbane in 2020 that the idea started to bloom. He started manning the kitchen at The Stores Grocer in West End, where he introduced an array of fresh pasta, gnocchi and Italian dishes – the crowd favourite being his lasagna alla bolognese. After The Stores shuttered, he recognised that he might be onto something with his wonder dish.
“After The Stores shut, I decided to try something with the lasagna. I started producing it – one product only – and I [went] around the shops trying to sell the lasagna. My first customer was The Standard Market Co, then IGA Ascot and Hawthorne Garage. And then other small boutique shops around Brisbane, like Good Things Grocer and Meat at Billy’s.”
As demand continued to grow, Jacopo realised he needed a bigger production facility, securing Corbetta’s Kitchen’s Morningside site in September 2024, located next door to The Morningside Meat Market and down the road from The Fish Factory. With the new site also came new opportunities – to expand Jacopo’s wholesale and ready-to-cook range, but also to offer made-to-order lunch options. He officially opened the doors to the public in December. “It took me a couple of months,” Jacopo tells me, “I had to keep going with the production because it’s just me doing it”.
The end result was certainly worth the wait. While the lasagne alla bolognese is still the star of the show, Corbetta’s Kitchen has a whole lot more to offer. On entering the no-frills space, you’re instantly met with the aromas of an Italian kitchen – bolognese bubbling, sauces simmering. The glass-doored fridges and freezers display a selection of take-home delights alongside Jacopo’s famous lasagna, such as spinach and ricotta cannelloni, polpette al pomodoro and parmigiana di melanzane, as well as Napoli sauce and ragu alla bolognese. If you can’t wait until you get home (and with those scents floating from the kitchen, who can blame you), Corbetta’s Kitchen serves up a freshly made lunch menu, which can be enjoyed outside beneath umbrella-shaded picnic tables.
Corbetta’s traditional beef and pork lasagna headlines the lunch menu, of course, allowing you to sample a slice before you commit to the entire tray (trust us, you’ll commit). It’s joined in the hot box by house-made pork sausage rolls (the sausage mince made next door at The Morningside Meat Market using Jacopo’s recipe) and ricotta and spinach rolls, as well as slabs of margherita focaccia pizza.
The menu also features two focaccia sandwiches, made fresh to order. You can watch in awe as Jacopo expertly constructs your focaccia – the first featuring mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes, both cut fresh and dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and salt before joining fresh rocket, mayo and house-made caper, black olive and basil tapenade atop the bouncy bread. The second option features porchetta, which Jacopo stuffs, rolls and slowly sous vides overnight, before finishing in the oven each morning. Freshly baked focaccia is drizzled with mayo and house-made salsa verde, then topped with a glistening handful of wafer-thin sliced porchetta and rocket.
Rounding out the lunch menu are seasonal salads – think vibrant bowls of panzanella brimming with jewels of cherry tomatoes, black and green olives, capers, cucumber, capsicum and basil, or peas with zucchini, celery, pickled red onion and fresh mint. In the near future, the menu will be bolstered by the addition of fresh take-home pasta, gnocchi and tiramisu, as well as takeaway coffee.
While the Corbetta’s Kitchen offering is simple, a lot of time, care and preparation goes into each dish. Jacopo makes almost everything in house himself (with the help of a small team), using the finest local and imported Italian ingredients he can find. His recipes are tried and tested, refined over the years, but Jacopo insists that it’s the quality of the ingredients that makes Corbetta’s dishes so delicious. “With Italian food, there are no big rules,” he says. “It’s all about fresh ingredients. There is no secret. There are no special ingredients. There are none. It’s just got to be good quality.”
For Corbetta’s Kitchen’s opening hours and contact details, head to The Directory.